Why We Believe

The fact that this appeared in Newsweek screams at a lack of objectivity. It is agenda driven. It trys to beat back the "moral majority" or anyone else with any kind of opinion that differs from one's own agenda. As has been scientifically demonstrated opinions are based upon admittedly subjective, and therefore flawed, intrepretations of events. Yes, even the author's. This scholarly tripe can be aimed at any thought process, even those of the author. Intellectually superior? Go ahead. Believe it. It makes you feel better. The pap others believe in makes them feel good too. Because you are godless, does it make you scientifically more entitled to your air, food and shelter than those believing otherwise? Or are you more entitled only in the warped construct of your OWN mind? Good stuff here poorly presented and used to prop an agenda many disagree with. I do not want to parse the entire article. The author makes presumptions at key points that the average reader would blow right past, accepting the content at face value. The author with his superior intellect knows this. Shame on you! The ability to read and therefore think critically has been lost to several generations in our nation. We need to reverse this trend, if it is not too late.

I used to look forward to Heaven. When I stopped believing I began to look forward to life. My NOW is more important than my AFTER. When this was reversed, I was impatient to die. Life is so much more precious now that I have stopped taking for granted a hereafter. My moments are brim with more meaning and poetry than ever before. I am an atheist, yes. But I am not unkind, or deplorable. These are not qualities of atheistic societies in general. Look to the research and you will see that atheistic societies tend to have less crime and high levels of charity. Many atheists identify as humanists. We see life as a one shot deal, and as highly, highly precious. This is a simple subjective testimony for an atheist, because there are so few. Believers equate our disbelief with outright negative qualities, and its horribly far from true. It is believers who have hunted witches and homosexuals. Bigoted gods have caused humankind to squander precious moments on hatred toward those of other creeds, secular and faithful. It is saddening. There is no need to reply that some good comes of religion. This is true. But belief and faith has its dangers. It is better to mentally hover above the Earth, look objectively at humankind with its many creeds, and question why it is so. That is precisely what the research recounted in this article examines. It is not evil research. It is not mal-intended. It is simply inquiry. Inquiry is good. Curiosity about our amazing planet is okay. Its okay.

Your supposition is incorrect. I speak only to assert that the common perceptions of nonbelievers tend to be very negative, and unneccessarily so.

Mildly interesting, but when I got to the last sentence my jaw dropped. A clearly editorial comment on what I suppose the author thinks is an objective piece.

Atheism does not necessarily mean that life is purposeless. Judge for yourself the tenets of atheism:
TENETS OF ATHEISM: -There is no heavenly father. Humankind must protect the orphans and foundlings, or they will not be protected. -There is no god to answer prayer. Man must hear and help man. -There is no hell. We have no vindictive god or devil to fear or imitate. -There is no atonement or salvation by faith. We must face the consequences of our acts. -There is no beneficent or malevolent intent in nature. Life is a struggle against preventable and unpreventable evils. The cooperation of humankind is the only hope of the world. -There is no chance after death to "do our bit." We must do it now or never. -There is no divine guardian of truth, goodness, beauty, and liberty. These are attributes of humankind. We must defend them or they will perish from the earth.

Believers have no reason to fear those who choose not to believe in your particular god, ghosts, or apparitions.

I have no objection to the claims made against certain apparitions but the end of the article veered from a discusion of the paranormal to mention of atheists. Does anyone find it fascinating that scientific researchers who set out with the purpose of discovering the causes of belief conculde that there is no purpose to anything? As usual we should thank our scientists for their rigorous standards even as we remind them that they are not competent to pass judgement on philosophical questions.

Ever notice that people who believe in reincarnation always believe they were a famous person in another life? How come nobody ever thinks they were a nameless Russian, peasant, an anonymous slave toiling at the pyramids, or a faceless prostitute from the slums?

Maybe there is such a thing as reincarnation, and maybe there isn't, but it seems just a little grandiose to think one was John Adams, former president.

Science is not static and it 'evolves' over time. I've become a 'skeptic' of science in my lifetime because of all the flip-flops and reversals I've seen in the scientific community. First, there was the Piltdown man, which offered a clear example of an evolutionary link between man and ape for over 40 years from the time it was discovered in 1912 until it was determined to be a hoax. Secondly, there was a long period of time when the scientific 'establishment' was predicting the onset of a new ice age: up until about the mid-70's. Now, it's the reverse. Am I skeptical of scientists? Like anyone else, they present what they want everyone else to fall in line with based on whatever agenda they're, as a community, advocating at that time. I will not fall in blindly behind the scientific community because they tell me something is so without first doing my own research.

This applies to religion as well and is the reason religion has no place in governance of our secular nation. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. We all have the right to believe what we want, but not to force it down the throats of others, particularly through legislation. Read more here: http://alphadominance.com/?p=213

www.alphadominance.com

What about all the proof that is out there??? This article still didn't convince me that there's no ghosts. I've seen one and no one can take it away form me!!!

The problem with using science as a way of explaining 'everything' is that there is a lot more that is unknown about the universe than is known. For every question that is answered , many new questions always seem to arise. As someone who works in the scientific field, I've seen this first hand. If everything was known, there would be no need for further research. So, for a neuroscientist to claim that " the mind has no existence independent of the brain" , presumes that he knows all about the mind and the brain. This is far from the truth.
Also, science can often be wrong. What was once a valid scientific theory at one time, can become invalid ,once new data that contradicts the old theory emerges.
Science doesn't have all the answers. At least not yet. And it may never have them all.

I agree that to refuse the idea of something because it has no basis in experience, is not a suspension of judgment which is the proper stance for healthy open minded skepticism. It is too strong a claim to say there is NOTHING beyond death as a scientifc claim. This would assume a clear understanding of what it would mean for there to be SOMETHING or NOTHING beyond death. But there are serious problems with going to the other extreme that constitutes the fallacy of appeal to ignorance which far too many people fall victim to: Because no one has proven there is NOT something beyond death, then I am warranted in believing there is.

Even if we avoid such poor and fallacious reasoning, the problem is more fundamental than this. Here are just a few problems in meaning that would prevent us from even being able to make sense of the possibility of SOMETHING after death: 1) What does "death" mean? 2) What would it be like to have any such evidence that there is NOTHING or SOMETHING after death, i.e., what could even possibly constitute such evidence? Certainly science cannot make any claims based on the absence of evidence. But worse, whatever ???evidence??? we might have is NOT something "after death" but something for us now as living conscious beings. Normally, death means to no longer be alive in the sense of bodily functions, accompanied by decay of the body, and no sign that the body is associated with the normal response to the environment we call consciousness. What we know for sure is that alive and conscious human beings interpret their experience in a great many ways, including how they interpret the death of others and what this means to them cognitively and emotionally. Not all opinions are equally good ones. The best opinions about so-called "life after death," take into consideration that on its face, this is a manifest contradiction. The idea of "consciousness after death" may not be, but it is equally problematic to understand what we are trying to say with such a claim that does not have everything to do with those of us who are alive and interpreting the world.

DP

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To balance the views of Ms Begley and the experts she cites, Newsweek might consider the evidence for remote viewing, out of body experiences of those on the operating table and reincarnation, particularly the research of the late Dr. Ian Stevenson. That the mind is inseparable from the brain may someday ironically be shown to be the flat lander view after all.